COMMERCIAL DESCRIPTIONDirectly inspired by traditional saisons of the 19th century, beers meant to quench the thirsts of farm workers at harvest time, the Saison de la Senne is a beer of mixed fermentation. It is both bitter and aromatic thanks to particularly generous hopping, while at the same time developing a vinous and tangy character thanks to a blending with old lambic from the Cantillon brewery. Ripened in oak barrels for 9 months and listed at 4.3% abv.

From bottle at Moeder Lambic Fontainas. Thanks Jean !Appearance : Hazy pale yellow with big foamy and creamy head. Lots of lacing.
Aroma : Nose is amazing. Yeasty and rustic with a nice tartness. Citrusy with some funk. Slightly barnyard.
Taste : Notes of lambic, not much yeast. Citrusy with some funk. Finish is quite dry and slightly mineral.
Overall : Carbonation very fizzy, body very thin. Awesome nose, taste doesn’t lives up to the aroma but its still very good. I would have liked the saison caracter to be more prohiminent on the taste. It was probably the case when the beer was younger. I think this is a great blend to do. I’d like to try more of these.

Very good dense white head, lace; hazy yellow beer with a green shine. Again lambic Cantillon nose, wry, with unripe grapes, lunaria and other green fruit. Little spicy bitterness, helping to relieve the expected acidity. Root vegetables and health spices, with again such a bitter-vegetable aftertaste, not unlike artichokes. Quite some astringency, wry, medium bodied, bit spritzy. Very special, but the balance is not always ship-shape. And I have grave doubts about a Saison, containing real lambic - old-style Saisons had their own spontaneous infections.

Sampled from the bottle at Chez Moeder Lambic Fontainas; July 2010
This beer pours clear gold color at first but then ends up hazed as a full pour from the bottle is done evenly into three glasses. It is topped by a creamy, dense, long-lasting head that leaves some nice lacing on the sides of my glass. The aroma has a dirty foot Lambic character to it, notes of hay-like grain, a ripe funky farmhouse cheese character and a touch of medicinal aromatics as it warms up.

The beer is lightly tart tasting up front with a soft creamy texture. The lactic softness extends through to the finish where some bitter hop notes contribute to the flavor profile. The sourness is likely muted on my palate by the previous draft Gueuze that I just had. This has a very lingering, hoppy, bitter, herbal presence to it in the finish that declares loudly this is not solely the product of a Lambic fermentation. It is extremely dry, light feeling on the palate, but perhaps because of the lactic presence, not at all watery; there is juste enough slickness to this to keep it texturally interesting. The finish has some phenolic-soaked cotton ball character to it as well as more typical Lambic notes of musky and feral Brettanomyces character that seems to be slowly converting this beer into a Lambic (though the ample hop presence is always going to be here).

The mix of balancing notes between the tart, expressive hop notes and light texture really is quite fantastic. I am really enjoying this beer. It is interesting how noticeable the hops are in the flavor, yet I can’t really sense them in the nose. This is an exciting beer to be drinking; the integration and balance it achieves ends up being the best things about this beer and the coupling of hops with Lambic character is certainly interesting even if not wholly unique.

750 ml bottle shared at Spuyten with the local guys and Moeder Lambic, and Cantillon guys. Pours a nice light hazy orange with a medium head which fades a bit due to the acidity in the beer. Aroma is citrus, leafy grass, toasted malts, lactic acid, funky horsey sour lambic, bretty and slight stinky cheese with some earthy notes. Flavor is saison upfront with a moderate acidity with the sourness getting stronger towards the end- grassy herbal hops, with solid crackery and doughy malt profile- slight lactic and funky notes and a fairly strong sourness in the end. Doesn’t get too sour and the lambic seems to blend very well with the saison. One of the best, if not the best Belgian ale blended with lambic I have ever had- a very close bet would be Shaun Hills saison blended with Lambic.

In short: A very tasty, sharp and funky Saison. SuperbHow: Bottle 750ml, corked, at Moeder Lambic Saint-Gilles, Brussels, Belgium. Exact age unknown but probably not so old. Two years before expiration date (best before april 2012). The look: Cloudy yellow-blonde body topped by a large white head with good retentionIn long: Nose is very wild (almost funky/bretty) with a strong barnyard character and light vanilla notes. Body is full, crisp and very lively with a pickling carbonation. This is a tasty beer. Wild yeast all over the place, grapefruits, some cheese, crisp hay, dry wood, floral hops. The beer is very sharp, very tart, medium acidity and rather bitter. This is more aggressive than the typical Saison meant to be a table beer, this is almost a sipper. I really enjoyed that one. The beer seems to be hard to find. But I bought mine at Moeder Lambic Saint-Gilles and they still had more. So I have two advises to you: First, get your butt to Moeder Lambic to drink a nice Saison de la Senne and second, you look ridiculous in that, go and change.

750ml bottle, hazy yellow gold hue, with a frothy white head, yeasty, bretty, funky, leathery, dusty, oaky nose with a hint of vanilla, a sour accent of green apple, and a rhubarb tartness, with an acidic, lemony, citrusy, grapefruit spicy accent, with a hint of herbal bitterness in the aroma follows through on a medium-bodied palate with a yeasty, bretty, funky, spritzy, zesty, lemony, flowery hop citrusy character with a light musty, green apple sourness, with a wet oakiness, and a hop leafiness, leading towards a tart and sour, hoppy dry finish.

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